Christmas Eve Ride on SV650

This week has been unseasonably warm. Today, it was 37F! I was lucky enough to be able to take the SV650 out for a ride. It felt amazing to be back on two wheels. The visceral feeling as I rolled on the throttle. The exhilaration! It felt like flying very close to the ground. All my senses were awake and present. Wow, I missed this bike so much!

I rode around for just over twenty miles. It flew by. I visited all the twisty roads near my house and several of the lakes. I’m amazed how nice it was to ride again. The roads were mostly dry and some of the grass is even starting to get green. I could get used to winters like this!

I am still healing, so no Ural rides yet. The physical therapy is making progress returning my shoulder and chest back to normal fitness. I’m glad riding two wheels doesn’t require much upper body strength. Driving the car has been rather soul crushing. The SV is a smile machine. There has been a smile stuck on my face for the last several hours. Riding is good. This was just the xmas present I needed. Happy Holidays!

RiderCoach Sign up and a Ural

This last weekend, I signed up in the RiderCoach sign up. All the coaches for the college I teach at meet once a year to pick which classes we are going to teach.

We line up by senority. Even after teaching for four years, I am still at the end. This year, there was finally one new coach behind me. We signed up to teach together next summer.

One of the other coaches also rides a Ural. He rode his to the signup. I snapped the picture above as he was pulling out of the parking lot. As I took it, I thought "so that's what I look like when I ride my ural."

Winter Scootering

This weekend was exceptionally warm for a Minnesota winter! It was in the mid 40s for most of the time and didn't freeze overnight; no ice! I took this opportunity to take my girlfriend out on a scooter ride. It was my first ride in over five weeks.



We rode around several of the nearby lakes. Even though it was very foggy and spitting rain, we both has a good time. We rode for about an hour stopping several times to look at the different lakes.



Several of them had ice houses for fishing. With the warmer temps, the ice has been getting thinner, so no one was driving on the lakes. It is supposed to get cold again soon, so perhaps we can take the ural out on lake soon. I like to wait until I see trucks parked on the ice before I ride on it. If it can hold a 4000 pound truck, it can easily handle my little 800 pound sidecar.



On the way to the last lake, we spotted a wild turkey standing in the road. We briefly chased it with the scooter until it ran off into the woods.

It was a very fun ride. I am hopeful to begin riding the ural again as soon as my upper body is strong enough which I hope will be in a couple weeks.

The hour on the scooter was about ten minutes longer than I should have ridden, but we were having fun. A great day to be out on two wheels. Lots of smiles.

Motorcycle First Thursday - December 2014

There were only three motorcycles at motorcycle first Thursday in Minneapolis for the month of December. The bikes included a small dirt bike, honda rebel, and a goldwing.

Sadly, my Ural is not among them this month. This is the first first Thursday I have not ridden to since I started coming several years ago. I hope to be fit enough to ride in a couple weeks.

I had a decent time chatting with friends talking about bikes and how we wished we were in a warmer place to go riding.